Site Mobile Navigation

Mining Company to Offer H.I.V. Drugs to Employees

After more than a year of mixed signals, the mining company Anglo American P.L.C., which is confronted with a crushing AIDS burden in Africa, said today that it would begin supplying life-prolonging drugs to all its employees who are H.I.V. positive.

Anglo, a world leader in gold, platinum and diamond mining and one of Africa's largest private employers, indicated last year that it intended to supply antiretroviral drugs, but it retreated a few months later, saying the cost would be too great.

With its announcement today, however, Anglo has apparently decided that it has no choice but to treat its workers, although it stopped short of agreeing to treat their dependents.

Despite the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the commitment and the capacity of governments to supply the drugs remain uncertain, leaving companies like Anglo to postpone treatment of their workers at their own peril.

The rates of H.I.V. infection among adults in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe -- countries where Anglo operates -- are among the highest in the world. In Botswana and Zimbabwe, more than a third of all adults are infected.

The mining industry, which has long relied on migrant workers who live far from their families and who often frequent prostitutes, has been hard hit by H.I.V. and AIDS. Anglo, with 90,000 employees in southern Africa and thousands more working for affiliated companies like the diamond miner De Beers, faces a particularly difficult problem.

In South Africa, which has more H.I.V.-positive people than any other country, about 28 percent of employees in the subsidiary AngloGold are infected with the virus, the chief executive, Robert M. Godsell, said today.

Anglo American's chief executive, Tony Trahar, said in a conference call with reporters: ''This is a very significant step, and we hope that by taking this step, at this stage, it sets the lead for other South African companies.''

Anglo is the first mining company to undertake such a large-scale treatment initiative, and other big businesses will be carefully watching its efforts.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

''You have to start somewhere,'' said Dr. Brian Brink, who is coordinating Anglo American's H.I.V.-AIDS efforts.

A few other companies started similar efforts last year, though with far fewer employees to treat. Debswana, a diamond company owned by De Beers and the government of Botswana, began providing the drugs to employees and spouses, and DaimlerChrysler South Africa, which has a factory in the port city of East London, began supplying the drugs to employees and families.

Unlike those plans, Anglo's will cover employees but not their spouses or children. The company says the government must fill that gap. ''I do hope that we can develop an effective public-private partnership,'' Mr. Trahar said.

The program will be adopted over the next year, through the same clinics that already tend to the routine medical needs of miners and mine managers, Mr. Trahar said.

The cost is hard to project, he said, mainly because it is hard to say how many employees will use the drugs, especially early on. Until now, miners could receive treatment only for the illnesses that frequently accompany H.I.V.-AIDS, like tuberculosis. Other Anglo employees who do not work on the mines have had access to antiretroviral drugs through their managed care plans, and the disparity had drawn considerable criticism from organized labor.

Moferefere Lekorotsoana, a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, said that Anglo's program was welcome but that companies had to begin acting in concert with one another, and with the unions and government, for real progress.

''We'd like to see a much more collective approach to dealing with AIDS,'' he said. ''Today it's Anglo giving the drugs, but what about Gold Fields? What about Harmony, and so on and so forth, who have not come to the party?''

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on August 7, 2002, on Page W00001 of the National edition with the headline: Mining Company to Offer H.I.V. Drugs to Employees. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe